Chat with strangers. Make conversations worth remembering.

Open the Discover page and you see the people who are online right now. Each card shows a display name, a photo, an age, a country, the languages the person speaks, their interests and, once they have enough ratings, their reputation. When someone looks interesting, press Chat. They get a request, and if they accept, you both land in a private chat session.

Timing is not always perfect, so there are two fallbacks. If the person is busy in another chat, you can join their queue and you are told when it is your turn. If they are offline, you can schedule a chat and you are told when they come online, by email as well if you have email notifications switched on.

A conversation goes better when you have something in common, so Discover can be filtered. You can narrow the list by country, language, age range, gender and reputation, and you can look for people who share your interests. If you want to practise a language, filter for people who speak it. If you only want to talk to people who are rated highly by others, raise the reputation filter.

The filters work both ways. A request is only possible when each person fits what the other asked for, so nobody receives requests from people they filtered out.

Chats are built around text. You can also send photos and short voice notes when a sentence is not enough. There is no video and no webcam, so nobody has to show their face to talk. You can write in any language you share with the other person. The interface itself is in English.

After a chat ends, both people have 24 hours to rate each other on five traits: politeness, thoughtfulness, how easy the person was to talk to, honesty and open-mindedness. For a chat to be rated, each person must have sent at least 10 messages, so a one-line drive-by cannot be used to rate someone down.

Ratings are anonymous. You are told when someone gives you five stars, never who it was. Reputation shows on your profile once you have talked or debated with at least three different people. It is how good conversations become easy to find.

Messages are not screened before they are delivered, so the tools are in your hands. From any chat, debate or direct message you can report a person or a message with the flag icon, choose a reason and add context. You can block anyone you do not want to hear from. A person on our team reviews reports, and serious violations lead to suspension or a permanent ban.

Age matters too. People under 18 can only meet people under 18, and adults can only meet adults. This is a fixed rule, not a filter, and it applies to chat requests, random chat, direct messages and one-to-one debates.

Open with a specific question rather than hello. Read the other person's interests and use one. Say what language you would like to talk in. If a conversation is not working, end it politely and rate it honestly. If someone crosses a line, report them and block them. You do not owe anyone your time.